


Airwaves

by safficwriter



Category: Original characters - Fandom
Genre: (that's a cursed tag), College AU, Covid-19 pandemic, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, angst then eventual flufff, misconceptions/misunderstanding trope, slightly a Pride and Prejudice AU, tiktok au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27521017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safficwriter/pseuds/safficwriter
Summary: It’s hard enough to start college in a new school, a new country, and a new way of life in the COVID-19 pandemic. It only becomes more complicated when Reule, a reserved French-German international student, accidentally gets internet famous after his friends convince him to make a TikTok about his fashion titled “How to Dress Like a Love Sick, Ambiguously Gay Classical Composer” and it goes viral in America. Suddenly, not even an inconspicuous face mask and 6 feet of social distance can keep him from unwanted attention by these unruly Americans. If it wasn’t bad enough, the only person he can’t get the attention of is his sworn internet c̶r̶u̶s̶h̶ enemy Keenan, the rising star youtube remixer who—as fate would have it—just so happens to live on his floor. If Reule’s going to survive college, the internet, and his jerk floor mate, he’s going to have to write the notes of his own song.
Relationships: Reule/Keenan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Airwaves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FluffleDuffel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffleDuffel/gifts).



> A birthday present for the beautiful FluffleDuffel (part 2 coming soon)
> 
> I return from the fiction writing hiatus to present a slightly cursed premise that is hopefully executed well. Enjoy!

Tchaikovsky always sent him soaring. 

Reule is running through a field in the French countryside, 20 kilometers outside of Leon, the yellow-green grass swaying and screening beneath his feet as he runs, arms open, face towards the sun. Behind him the fruit hanging from the trees on the orchards are not yet ready to be harvested, but are swelling bright and verdant with color and life as they reach their ripest point. Soon the farm workers will come pouring in from other parts of the country for the farming season. 

But today, it is only him, here on his uncle’s farm. Nothing around him but the blue sky, the beating sun, the ripening fruit, the yellowing grass, the thrum of the piano in his ears. He feels a crisp breeze on his face interrupting the heat—a sign of the cooler fall season to come. The wind glides through his ears and tail, bellowing his coat behind him. But he’s still pleasantly warmed and at completely at ease. Not disturbed by any living creature, caught in this glorious—

“Hey, um, excuse me?” 

The sound jolts Reule out of his daydream and back into reality, and with a start he looks up from his laptop and into the eyes of another student. He scrambles to take his large no-I-don’t-want-to-make-small-talk-with-you headphones off and “The Harvest” cuts out abruptly. The summer heat disappears, blasted away by the aggressive air conditioning of the supposedly eco-friendly student center. The chill makes his velvet jacket and cravat, worn over a plush doublet actually temperature appropriate. 

A girl with the curly, dark hair, pink cat ears, and thick horn rimmed glasses is staring at him, crouching slightly and half raising her hand in a gesture to wave, trying to get his attention from two meters away. Her glasses are slightly fogged up due to the bright blue face mask she wears over her nose and mouth—a university required coronavirus precaution in indoor study spaces. She turns the last part of the sentence up in pitch in a way that he notices that Americans do when they think they are being polite and bitterly failing. 

Reule clears his throat. “Uh, hi. Is everything alright? If I recall correctly I reserved this desk for at least 30 more minu-“ 

“No, no, it’s like, totally fine. Um. I just wanted to ask if like. You were that guy, from TikTok?” 

As much as the music had made his blood rush before, her words sent it soaring back down and curdling in his throat. Ever since he had arrived in America, it was the only question people had been asking him. 

“Hey, are you—“ 

“Wait, dude, you’re not—“ 

“Oh my gosh, he totally is! Get your phone out Keighlyn!” 

Wading through the lines of jet lagged bodies at JFK. On the New York City streets, seconds after he was blinking into bright sun. His god damn Uber driver for Christ’s Sake, while he was steering him towards the small, secluded liberal arts campus he was going to call home for the next four years.

The two weeks of mandatory quarantine, alone in his room with only deliveries from the dining hall and pixels of his friends from home on social media to keep him company, were almost a blessing. That was until a little over a week in, when the campus meme page featured a snapchat of him queueing for his covid entry test with a caption unparalleled in its command of the English language: 

“WAIT Y’ALL—that gay Mozart mf goes to our school? I’m dead skskskskk 💀🤧” 

In the image, Reule was wearing a typical outfit—well, typical for him at least. The fact that he likes to dress like an 18th century composer, personally, is his own god damn business. If he’s honest, he just likes the aesthetic—the long, ornate coats, puffy white undershirts, bright vests. Some may say that tucking tights into knee shorts makes him look like a massive tool. But of Billie Eilish can become a fashion icon by dying her hair florescent green and wearing XXXL hoodies and baggy shorts, there was no reason why there couldn’t be any sort of stylistic variation in the wardrobes of the men of the world. 

And as an added bonus, it makes him feel closer to his life goal: to climb the echelons of that glorious cannon, to join that pantheon of the most celebrated composers of all time. Mozart. Vivaldi. Tchaikovsky. Chopin. Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Errollyn Wallen. And perhaps, if he worked his ass off for the next few years in this joint program—where he’d finish with a “marketable” liberal arts degree and a degree from the nearby music conservatory all in four years—he might even have a shot. 

Glasses girl was looking at him expectantly. “Uh, um,” he began eloquently. “Yes?” He mimicked her raise in pitch. 

It was all he had to say. Words piling out after each other, she carried the rest of the conversation for him. “Oh my god, I knew it! Well, like I didn’t like, _know_ , obviously, but I knew that you went here and everything. I thought it was like. So funny like you would not be _lieve._ And like actually, I kind of went TikTok famous myself early in quarantine. It was just like a dancing video, you know the Doja Cat one? But then my little brother came into the room and—“

He nodded and smiled politely while she finished her story, and when she asked for his instagram account he told it to her, promising to follow back and get together sometime, “outside and in a totally socially distanced way, and everything.” But as soon as she was gone, tail swishing behind her between folds of her pleated skirt, he only wanted to bury his head in his hands and forget the entire exchange, forget anyone, anywhere had ever laid eyes on him. 

It went without saying that he never wanted to be Tik Tok famous. The silly video, the literal 45 seconds that has become his undoing, was only supposed to be shared within his close friends, a gift of sorts to his best friend Amelie, who had recently become obsessed with the so-called “fashion side of TikTok.” From his understanding, it was a corner of content creators and their fans in the social media app where teenagers and young twenty-somethings model-walked in their driveways and bedrooms in various outfits with deep bass music playing in the background. 

Jokingly, he’d put together his own video for her. “How to dress like you’re a hopeless romantic, homosexual composer from the 18th century,” he drawled into the camera in English, parodying the voices of so many videos she’d shown him with a reference to his own favorites of the canon. 

“Step one, shirts must be white, cotton, and excessively poofy in the sleeves. The collar _must_ be accommodating of the most lascivious cravat you can get your hands on. Next, you need to select your doublet and coat with great care. Ensure that your doublet is vibrant such that it shall catch your lover’s eye at the winter opera whence you and he shall exchange a glance across the many throngs of audience members, a love unspoken in word but expressed intimately in the moonlight sonata you pen for him…” The video continued though the different components of his outfit, and ended with a wink and a kiss to the camera. 

He’d only put the video on the app in order to send it to her over text, with a message reading “for you, happy birthday bebe xx.” 

He sent it just before he went off the grid for an annual six week visit to his Aunt and Uncle’s farm out in the countryside where he would have next to no wifi, just open air, fresh food, and all the time in the world to write and play music with no distractions. It was something he looked forward to all year. The trip this year would have added two points of significance: one, he was thankful for a refuge from the virus-ridden city that was still under cautious lockdown due to the coronavirus and two, it was the last he would take before heading to America for the next four years to complete his studies abroad.

So it was a cruel slap in the face when he returned to civilization, and at the first moment of wifi connection on the train back to Paris, his phone nearly exploded with messages. Texts from friends and acquaintances he barely knew. Parsing through the weeks of unanswered messages, he learned the truth: his stupid video, which had only been meant as a present to Amelie, had gone viral. 

900,000 views on Twitter alone. More on the TikTok app itself. 3000 comments. 

A Buzzfeed article: “30 TikToks we can’t stop saying ‘YASSS KWEEN’ to.” 

_Le Monde,_ of all places, had it on its “culture” section, alongside an article about the unwritten queer history of several well known composers.

His fate was sealed. He was no longer Reule, the aspiring composer and shy international student. He was only “the guy from TikTok.” 

Seriously, this is what students waste their time on in America? Viewing ungodly amounts of social media and stalking people from it? He supposed it had to do with their ungodly high drinking age.

Workflow interrupted, Reule trudged across the campus, careful to follow the green “this way” arrows that directed him back to his floor. He swiped the key card that opened his door, and stepped inside, pulling his mask off his face and dropping it into the trashcan beside the door. He swung his messenger bag onto a chair and lied down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was the same, ugly popcorn ceiling that every American building built after 1960 had decided to subject its inhabitants to. The walls were cinderblock grey, save for a small window on the far side of the room. There were two sets of orange-brown dorm furniture, complete with a wardrobe, desk, chair, and a bed with a hard blue mattress he’d tried to spruce up with silky green sheets. 

He’d been hoping for a roommate—a built in friend to help him navigate this new, daunting social sphere. But Ms. ‘Rona had put a stop to that. 50% of the campus, mostly juniors or seniors, were learning from home or living off campus in the college town nearby. Those on campus were mostly freshman and sophomores, including international students like him who were in danger of losing their F1 visas if they did not enter the country in a timely manner. Students in the dormitories were living in converted singles, ideal for all the modern college student’s quarantine needs. 

He did have floor-mates with whom he was supposed to be in a “pod.” They were encouraged to wear masks at all times, but could go within 6 feet of each other to socialize. This was the college’s idea of “creating a campus community” in the current situation. It wasn’t great. What it was, was fine. It was fine. He got along with all of his pod mates.

Well, _almost_ all of them.

After an hour of absentmindedly scrolling through his phone and staring up at the god awful ceiling, he fixed a mask on his face and meandered out of his room and into the common room kitchen, a packet of ramen under his arm. He thought the stuff was absolutely atrocious and he knew the sulfuric acid would burn a hole in his throat before he turned 30, but god damn if he wasn’t sick of dining hall pizza and god damn if he didn’t have 4 hours to put this composition down on paper for his Classical Compositions ini Theory and Practice class tomorrow. Microwave ramen would have to do for the time being. 

The Hot Topic model reject in front of him in the common room stared into a small black book, pen tucked under two fingers. His long bangs, half dyed bright green, swept in front of his eyes, obscuring him from view. Keenan. He was a first-year like Reule, but that was about all Reule knew about him. They’d exchanged maybe two words through all of orientation and the beginning of the school year, despite both attending mandatory pod bonding session with the 5 others on their floor. 

He could swear the mask Keenan was wearing was actual _leather_ —was that even protective against the virus?—with little skulls embroidered in a corner. His backpack, slung over a shoulder was absolutely covered with little round and enamel pins: a rainbow, a raised first, a trans flag, “nazi punks fuck off” in black and red, a pair of converse shoes. HIs signature lime green headphones were slung around his shoulders. Funny. For all the times Reule saw Keenan wearing the headphones, he never seemed to ever actually be _listening_ to anything on them. And even if he was, the harsh techno-beats emanating from his room that kept Reule up at night when he was trying to _actually_ _compose_ could not be mistaken for real music. 

He seemed absolutely transfixed on the little black notebook and part of Rule wanted to know what could keep his attention fixed on that same sheet of paper for so long. He seemed a little shocked when he looked up to see Reule standing ni the doorway, as if he hadn’t heard come in. 

“How do you do?” Reule asked, nodding at Keenan and trying to make small talk. “First week of classes going alright?” 

The other boy said nothing, just nodded back. Then, he closed his book, averted his eyes and slid out of the common area and entered his own room, shutting the door with a thud. 

It was always that way with Keenan. Reule would smile and try to initiate small talk when they saw each other in the halls or in the common area and Keenan would just. Say nothing. And walk away. Like Reule had the plague. And, granted, there was a plague, but he was getting tested once a week just like everyone else, same as Keenan. 

Reule stewed on this as his ramen cooked in the microwave. The door opened again and from the shock of pastel pink out of the corner of his eye, he knew it was Kayle. She wore a black and pink two piece skirt set and a pink mask. Her long platinum blonde hair was streaked with a shade of pink that matched the large ears that stuck out from her head. 

“Hey Reule, how’s it going?” She asked.

He smiled at her. “It’s good, as good as can be expected, you know?”

Of all the students he’s met at university so far, Kayle has to be his closest friend. They met while waiting in a two hour line for a covid test, on the day of the dreaded snapchat. She told him she liked his scarf (he told her it was a cravat) and they struck up a conversation from six feet away, and have since then exchanged a flurry of messages and hung out over meals. 

They caught up on the little things: how Zoom sucked and how many assignments they had to do already and wasn’t it sooo weird to be going to college like this? All the whole Kayle doodled on her iPad, no doubt a beautiful artist's rendering that was going out to her tens of thousands of Twitter and Instagram followers once she had the linear finalized. 

Conversation was easy with Kayle. She never once brought up the video though he’s sure she knew about it. At least she responded to him. Unlike some people.

When his ramen was as cooked as it was going to get in the dinky dorm microwave, he made his goodbyes and headed back to his room to eat and tackle this assignment. 

He flicked on a lamp, laid out a sheet of paper, and withdrew his quill and ink pot from a desk drawer. Much to the chagrin of his friends, professors, and well, everyone, he liked to draft music the old fashioned way, in ink. It helped his mind move, the rhythmic scratching of the pen remniscent of the sounds he harnessed when it was played aloud. 

He knew better than to think too deeply about Keenan. But how could he not, when their feud apparently ran so much deeper than Keenan’s avoidance of polite conversation. 

It was shortly after he became aware of the extent of the TikTok Incident. Somehow, Gen Z internet hooligans had found his Twitter account that had before then been for sharing cat videos and memes about famous composers, along with some of his own recitals pre-lockdown. It was there he encountered the comment:

"wow what are you an idiot. Go back to the 20th century grandpa."

5 likes, 1 comment. 

Normally, an anonymous twitter rand wouldn’t hurt him. But he was on social media so infrequently, and it was his private account. Afterwards, he deleted the app from his phone, though he left the account up. 

He hadn’t thought much about the twitter user’s long, sweeping black bangs, half of them dyed green, until he saw them again in person on the first day of college orientation. 

Keenan had been so simply rude to him on Twitter—and now he was pretending like he didn’t even recognize him?

Fine. If that was the way he wanted to act. But if they were the only people the 6 of them were yet to see, he could at least have the _courtesy_ …

He put his head down and kept swiping his quill across the page. Whatever was up with Keenan, it wasn’t his business. He needed to focus on the task at hand. Below him, in the meager lamplight, a constellation of notes blossomed across the page, and with them, the fiery piano rhythm he could play to drown out his thoughts. 

—

Somehow, hours turned into days and days turned into weeks. It was as if Reule blinked and suddenly more than a month of his first semester of college had come and gone. Now the air had a distinct smelling chill and the trees were tinged with yellow, preparing for their late autumn swan song. 

He fell into a routine: three days a week, he took classes at the college on Zoom, one of 40 blank screens soaking up English 101 and Intro to Economic Theory. The other two days, he took a bus to the nearby music conservatory, where he swapped his computer keyboard for an actual piano in an empty concert hall with 10 other students and had riveting discussions about music composition in a quad outside campus. 

Over time, people seemed to forget about The Video, or at least stopped asking him about it. Kayle got him his first slice of American pizza and took him on his first ever “Target run”—they didn’t have them in France, something about unions—and gradually, after she explained the Electoral College for the 10th time, he began to understand this strange country. 

Keenan was dour as ever though, and since the weather had gotten colder had taken to wearing bulky flannels and jackets that swallow most of his body. Reule still had yet to see him wear his headphones. Whatever. He always had that black book in his hands whenever Reule saw him, but the loud techno music blaring from his room had largely dissipated as the semester went on. Reule would grudgingly acknowledge that he missed it, if he had anyone to acknowledge it to.

When the crisp late September air had finally driven him back into his concrete room, Reule settled in for another right of studying—English lit, this time, trying to make sense of a postcolonial reading of Jane Austen’s _Pride and Prejudice_. He stuttered his way through the dense theory, quill in hand scratching notes into his notebook. 

He put on his headphones and logged into the portal for WKCB, the college radio station. It was something of a ritual of his: college radio, a dorky but dare he say under appreciated aspect of campus culture. Every night, every two hours, a different roster of hosts would have their own show on the station, everything from talk shows to music jockeys to a live action Dungeons and Dragons role-play that Reule is for sure overly emotionally invested in. He liked hearing the voices of his classmates scattered across the globe, all on the same channel. Hearing the radio show hosts, in between songs or dissecting the cultural and political ramifications of the newest Megan Thee Stallion music video, made him feel less alone. 

That night the station was a music show that oscillated between Western music, mostly American, but some French tunes thrown in there too and K-Pop/C-Pop. He bobbed his head until the announcer closed out her program at the end of her timeslot and a new show began. 

Most WKCB hosts spoke throughout their shows, or at least between songs. Not this one, from 10pm-12am every Thursday night. The songs were mostly punk and emo sounding, which Reule expected to hate but actually quite enjoyed. He liked the energy of them—the way the speakers were brash and straightforward in their discontent but also so vulnerable at the same time. 

The striking thing about the show was that even though the host didn’t speak, their presence was clearly tenable: they subtly or not so subtly remixed all the songs in their roster, blending one into another or transforming a classic into something entirely unique. For someone who prefered to write compositions to be performed exactly so, the effect is starling to Reule. To alter another’s notes, composing not on a blank sheet but one riddled with lines already, was something he had never really considered much less done himself. 

On that night, after some Against Me! Pulsed through his earbuds, the show sharply took a calmer note, and he heard the subdued opening notes of Fur Elise. Part of him stifled a groan, remembering all the junior piano concerts he had performed him, pupils playing this song over and over and over to smiling, camera wielding parents. 

Suddenly, the track skipped, like a record player where the needle has gotten stuck. He stopped, worrying his headphones were broken, when the track skipped again, the same record reverb as before. And then a new beat gets laid over Beethoven. 

And it was beautiful. Reule seriously didn’t expect it to be beautiful. He listens intently, Jane Austen all but forgotten. The song was almost haunting, and it gave Reule the feeling he gets when he looks up from an orchestra pit to the pooling emptiness of an auditorium without a single spectator. Like he saw some far point in the void. 

When the song ends, he sits in silence for a while, not even realizing the program had ended until static filled his ears—off air time, common this late at night. In the audience chat interference on the WKCB website, a new message had popped up just a second ago. 

**BewitchedBody** : well, that’s a wrap on the show everyone. hope u all liked that last one: it’s an original, been working on it for a while. @classical music fans, no flames pls

After the post, a few comments trickle ini toe press their love for the show, for the remixes. Reule likes a few to show his support. 

He’s left with the scritching of the pen late into the night.

—

It’s a Thursday in mid October when the ball drops, crushing the fragile trappings of normalcy that Rule has been able to build for himself this semester. 

His composition instructor wrings her hands when she tells the class the news: not all of them will be able to keep their seats in the course for spring semester. Budget cuts, she says, and a lack of performance demands have tightened the entire industry, and the school has to respond. Reule nearly falls off his chair. He knew he was going to have to audition It’s customary by conservatory standards that students needed to audition each semester to keep their place in their respective, highly competitive tracks (for Reule, that’s composition.) But to move the audition cut off to the end of the semester? That stops him cold. He’s not ready. 

Last class, the professor had pulled him back after class and been straight with him: if auditions were held today, he wouldn’t be at the top of the class. 

“You have real promise, Reule,” she said to him over her spectacles. She clasped her brown hands behind her and looks down at him. “Really. As a composer and a player. The attention to detail is there. But right now you’re lacking that spark of—let’s say _originality_ . Study the masters, yes, and learn from them, but if you want what you say you want—to be _great_ —you need to strike further out on your own.”

A lump formed in Reule’s throat, and he nodded. His cheeks and forehead grew hot but his blood ran ice cold. She was telling him he wasn’t good enough. That if not for some sort of miracle, his dreams have been dashed. 

“I don’t know if looking the part is helping you much either,” she says with a fake sternness, trying to dissipate some of the tension. Reule forces out a shaky laugh. Despite the teasing from earlier in the semester, he was still sporting a red doublet and coat set. 

She put a hand on his shoulder. “For your composition this weekend, try something different. Surprise me. _Surprise yourself_.” 

_Surprise yourself_. The phrase kept ringing through his head, all through the bus ride back to campus, the walk back to his dorm, and as he tapped his quill to his parchment and felt nothing spurring his hand into action. 

What was he, if not for the composers he consumed and emulated? His friends always joked that he was abysmally out of touch with modern music—and modern society in general. His habits, his dress, they were all shadows of a past great generation. What did he have to genuinely contribute to the future of classical music?

At 8pm, no work having been done, he was forced to leave his room for a mandatory floor “bonding meeting,” the fifth or so required one with his pod. He sat on a couch where Kayle was perched on the far corner, a bow tied around one of her ears. She smiles at him with her eyes, mouth covered by a baby blue mask. 

Keenan sits in the far corner, his focus mostly on the black notebook. Occasionally, he shoots glances right at Reule. Reule shifts slightly under his intense glares. 

Their RA, Casey, walked them through an awkward “roses and thorns” round circle and tells them that they’re playing a “get to know you” game where they “interview” each other and “report” back to the rest of the crowd. 

To Reule’s immense regret regret, Casey paired him with Keenan, who just keeps staring at him. 

“Uh, hi Keenan.” Reule said trying to break the palpable awkwardness. 

“Hi,” Keenan replied averting his gaze to the black book, which is thankfully closed. 

Reule decided grin and bear it and to approach this like any other school assignment. “Okay,” he says thoughtfully. “So I think it’s important to establish year, major, where you’re from, if you have any siblings, what your career plans are after college, a favorite food or some other fun fact.”

Keenan haltingly answered his questions, explaining that he’s a first year like Reule, that he’s from Michigan, his favorite cuisine is Vietnemese food, that he’s majoring in audio production and business. 

“And business?” Reule asks, kind of shocked that a guy with a “no ethical consumption under capitalism” pin would be a closet finance bro.

“Mostly for the sake of supporting my career in the music industry. It helps to be able to understand contracts, record deals, that kind of thing.”

“Huh. Okay.”

They lapse into awkward silence. Reule looks longingly at Kayle chatting with Remi, laughing over some shared joke though he can’t make out what they are saying. Keenan follows his gaze, and when Reule notices, he turns back towards the green haired kemonomimi sitting across from him.

“So um. What’s going on. With you.” Keenan speaks as though he’s just remembered basic rules of polite conversation.

Before Reule responds, Casey’s voice cuts through the din of conversation. “Okay! Looks like everyone’s done, let’s regroup.” 

Reule looks at Keenan, slightly panicked. Keenan shrugs. “I think I know enough about you to do a short introduction.”

_Go back to the 20th century grandpa_ Reule sees the comment flash back in front of his eyes. So Keenan does remember him? His cheeks flush red and he’s grateful for the surgical mask. 

Introductions went on with little fanfare. They learned about Kayle’s little brother and Remi’s self described “Peter Pan syndrome” before Reule politely introduces Keenan, sticking to the facts. The others are also surprised about Keenan’s business major, but he just shrugs.

Then, it’s time for Keenan to introduce Reule, starting with his dual enrollment program and the fact that the’s an international student from Paris. “Okay so, I think Reule is one of those people that like, you can spot from 50 or 100 feet away,” he continues, and the blush creeps back into Reule’s face. “You know what I mean? He obviously has a very distinctive sense of style, we all know him when we see him.”

Kasey, to Reule’s chagrin, laughs, but shoots him a sympathetic glance. 

“And as I’m sure we all know, Reule is also a minor celebrity. Like, he went MAJOR TikTok famous over the Summer. And honestly, as a social media creator myself, I was like, totally jealous when I found out he was _literally in our year_. I was like, wow, you got famous so easy. For me as a musician, I wish I get like a quarter of the views you did. And like those memes? Hilarious.”

Reule feels like a cartoon, when a character is so upset that a tea kettle steam blows out of his ears. This is the most he’s ever heard Keenan talk, and all their classmates are laughing about the worst moment of his life. Got famous easy? How dare he! Reule was a serious musician, and the entire world had been laughing at him. Soon he wouldn’t even _be_ a musician at all once he lost his spot at the conservator. And oh so conveniently, Keenan leaves out the biting comment he left on Reule’s Twitter. 

The session ends soon after that, and Reule remains stewing on the couch, his face feeling quite hot. Kayle stands near him, her hands pulling at each other, able to tell that something is clearly wrong. 

“I think he was only joking,” she offers. 

“Well it’s not funny.” He shoots back in a biting tone. 

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” she asks. He nods, putting his head in his hands. He hears the door shut behind her and after waiting a few moments, returns to his own room. He sits in front of his blank composition sheet but no words come, he just hears the blood rushing in his ears. 

That’s when he heard the music coming from Keenan’s room. He stood up like he heard a gun shot. 

He marches over to Keenan’s room to tell him to turn the music the fuck down, not caring when it stops before he’s even made it to the door. He knocks sharply. 

“Hello?” Keenan’s muffled voice asks, clearly confused. Reule opens the door and quickly shuts it behind him, not wanting to be seen by Casey or anyone else. Technically, he could get a week suspension for being in closed dorm quarters with another student in violation of the covid distancing protocols. But this is a conversation that needs to be had. 

“What the hell is your problem?” Reule asks tersely. 

“Wha?—“ begins Keenan, eyes wide. “Is. Is this about my music being too loud? I’m sorry”

Reule realizes how stupid of an idea this is. So what if Keenan is a rude, self-absorbed, coward but that didn’t have to bother him. This confrontation isn’t with it. “Yeah. Thank you. I just have a lot of work this weekend.” He puts his hands on the door.

“Wait.”

He pauses. 

Keenan shifts slightly. “Would you uh. Would you want to hang out sometime?”

Reule stares. “Hang. Out?” 

“Yeah,” Keenan answers. “Since we never have? And I feel like we have a lot in common.”

“You must be kidding me. You hate me.”

“What? I could never—I—I don’t hate you. What could make you think that?”

“What could make me THIINK that?” All the anger, all the frustration, all the embarrassment that he’d just tried to push down came roaring back with a vengeance. How dare this boy? Staring at him all the time, humiliating him online and in front of the only friends he has. “Maybe it’s because you outright ignore me every timid I’ve tried talking to you? Maybe it’s—”

“You’ve been talking to me?” 

The genuine shock in Keenan’s tone made him pause. “Of course I have. Have you really never noticed?”

“Sometimes I’m listening to music.”

“I have never seen you use your headphones.”

“Well, they’re mostly for. The aesthetic I guess? I wear earbuds. They make it kind of hard to hear anything.”

He stares at the kemonomini in front of him. “You mean this entire time, you’ve had earbuds in? 

Keenan looked askance. “Yes? Is that something I should be announcing? Like a post it note on my forehead?” 

“You haven’t heard anything I’ve said to you, in the common room, in the halls, anything?”

“I mean. I guess. It’s hard to tell with your mask on I suppose. I always thought you were just kind of nodding at me weirdly, like it was some sort of European thing?” 

Reule just stares. Maybe it had been a misunderstanding. But then the hot flash returned. 

“Okay, but don’t pretend like you don’t know what you’ve said to me. Even if you weren’t brave enough to say it to my face.”

He’s still dumbfounded. “I haven’t really said anything to you. Not that I’m aware of anyway. Look.”

He stands up from the chair, and somehow Reule is struck by the two inches of height Keenan has on him. He hates those two inches with a burning passion. When he speaks, it’s more definitive than Reule has ever seen. 

“Listen. I don’t quite understand what’s happening here, but it seems like you have some stuff you want to hash out with me. I have to go right now, but if you want to talk, come down to the radio recording studio in the dorm basement in a bit.”

Reule blinked. “The studio?”

Keenan nodded. “Yeah. I have a show on Thursday nights at 10. I have to be there to make sure everything goes as planned, but I don’t talk or anything. We can chat in the booth. If you’re okay with that.”

Reule nodded, realization hitting him like a wave. A radio show. From 10 to 12. Where the host doesn’t talk. 

Surprise me. _Surprise yourself_ , his professor had said to him. 

Shit. 

  
  


{like and comment for part 2}


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